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Raise Your Game: How did you get started in the role of chief referee?

John Paramor: I joined the European Tour the day after my 21st birthday in 1976. As a golfer I couldn't get the ball in the hole in few enough strokes, therefore I decided to do something else because I loved the game and I was completely committed to golf.

RYG: For young people wanting to follow in your footsteps, how do you start as a referee?

JP: Firstly, you've got to play golf, and then it's a case of learning the rules. There are many ways of learning. I started by playing with people and learning from them. Obviously every time I made a mistake they pulled me up on it and I learnt from that experience. You can also get books which explain the rules.

RYG: How many rules are there?

JP: There's 34 rules! They can be very complicated as there are many sub-sections to them, and there are also different nuances and interpretations. Once you have got the rules book, you should get the decisions book, which has 1100 different case situations. This gives you even more clues as to what's going on.

RYG: Can a young person start at a lower level and then work their way up to professional tournaments?

JP: There are not many referees in golf because golfers do, for the most part, referee themselves. When we go out and play golf at home, it's very rare that we'd have a referee with us. We wouldn't need one hopefully. It's only when you get into the elite level that the top amateurs or professionals require a referee.

As I said, start playing golf, learn the rules and then become involved at the local club through to the high end of the club level. Then try working onto the county and national levels from there. There are examinations that the County Unions and the National Golf Unions run which will qualify you to work almost anywhere.

RYG: When the player calls for the referee, he or she is in trouble basically and want some sort of way out or an explanation on how to play the next shot. Tell me about some of the awkward customers that you might have had over the years?

JP: They are possibly in trouble, but they are also in need of just a little bit of help. If we're guiding them, they're absolved from any penalty that they might incur. I have had the pleasure of ruling most of the top players around the world, but one of the finest golfers I've ever seen is Severiano Ballesteros.

On the many times that I ruled with Seve he had this fire, the Latin temperament and a fierce competitive spirit which is what made him so popular. For example, it was the final round of the final event of the 1994 season. Seve was tied for the lead with Bernhard Langer playing the 18th hole at Valderrama Spain and he had hit his ball behind a tree. At the base of this tree there was a fairly large hole and Seve was trying to claim relief from this hole by trying to convince me that this hole had been made by a burrowing animal.

I disagreed, and what followed was a fairly lengthy debate between us as he was trying to show me all sorts of little things on the ground which he was claiming were rabbit droppings and I wasn't agreeing. In the end I said "Sorry Seve there is no relief from here." So he chipped it out sideways and unfortunately he didn't win the golf tournament.

RYG: Were you still friends afterwards?

JP: Yes, though more as close colleagues because we'd been through fairly high pressure situations together. I've refereed him many times in Match Play Tournaments, but I have always had the upmost respect for the man's talent and he could do things with a golf ball that others could only dream about.

RYG: What makes a good referee?

JP: A good referee is someone who clearly has a good knowledge of the rules of golf, but he also needs to be a good listener. He needs to listen to what the player is saying to him. Sometimes English is not the player's first language and the way he's describing something might not be really what he wants you to know, so you have to investigate a bit to find out exactly what's happened.

I always tell my fellow referees, if you have a problem there's no need to guess the answer. You've got enough people at the end of a walkie-talkie that if you get stuck, or you just want to check-up on something, ask someone else and they can help you.